Making Residents The Hero

In this episode, the Good Mood Marketing trio sits down with Mike Whaling, President and Founder of 30 Lines. Since 2008, Mike has been building his business to help apartment marketers stay top of mind for prospects, both online and in person. Mike’s take on brand marketing is next level, from key perspectives he’s picked up on from other industries, future trends in multifamily, and more. Check out our latest episode to find out about Mike Whaling’s industry knowledge.

Mike Whaling
Mike Whaling has been in the industry long before he founded 30 Lines in 2008. He’s been helping businesses connect with potential customers through social media, SEO, web design, and more. Mike is known for always thinking one step ahead and has a handle on marketing trends before they become mainstream. Listen to our latest episode to learn more about Mike and 30 Lines.

Transcript

Thomas Demiranda:

Welcome back to Good Mood Marketing. As always, I'm here with Christy and Katie, and today we'll talk about agency culture, real estate marketing trends, and how to provide the most value as a partner to the real estate industry. We're here with Mike Whaling, President and Founder of 30 Lines, an innovative PropTech company in the multifamily space. Mike's work as a brand builder was recognized by Businessweek when a client was named as one of the four innovators in social media next to companies like Ford and The Sharing Foundation. Well, Mike, that was a lengthy entrance, but worthy of one. Welcome.

Mike Whaling:

I probably need to get you an updated bio. It's been a little bit, but yeah, I mean, it's been a fun ride for sure. Especially since those days when we were all getting together on a regular basis over on Twitter.

Thomas Demiranda:

<Laugh> I appreciate it. And so, we really would like to start — I've seen some of your different experiences and your career growth, and looking at just your resume and LinkedIn, and now to being Founder of 30 Lines. We're very interested: how did you arrive here, and what have been some of those major milestones along the way that is kind of in the formation of your philosophies and approaches in business?

Mike Whaling:

Yeah, so, you know, it's, it's been a ride since my first business mowing lawns as a teenager. And you know, I think I had a side hustle in high school where I was creating some, I was really into cartoons and design and art, like really early on. But I didn't do that as, like, art. I did it as, I recreated logos for people. And so if you were into Nike, I'd make you a Nike poster for your, for your locker, or if you were really into like the, I got really into Loony Tunes and the whole, all the Warner Brothers cartoons, and I would end up making posters for people. Like recreating Marvin Martian and making sure people had that. And you know, I paid for a few lunches that way, <laugh>.

Mike Whaling:

But that, that really kind of got me started down into design and marketing and entrepreneurship. A few other things along the way, but, you know, early 2000's I was working in the industry for a low voltage engineering company still around today. Low voltage is all of the technology that is at the property. So security systems and cameras and all of the like, gates, you know, now all the door access systems, all of the cool, like, wireless speakers and things like that, at the clubhouse and out by the pool. One of the big things that we were working on back in the day was, like, those iPod docking stations that you put in the wall that would then connect to your stereo system. That was, that was a big deal. That was like, the really fancy stuff for the really fancy apartments in New York City.

Mike Whaling:

But it got me in the industry and it got me connected to this wonderful world of multifamily started attending NMHC and NAA and, you know, hit the conference circuit. And at the time, you know, I was doing all the sales and development and then marketing for this firm. And I was trying to figure stuff out on my own while also listening to what our mutual clients, what the industry was talking about, and how they were trying to figure out digital marketing and what it looked like in, you know, circa 2005, 2006. And the range at the time was MySpace <laugh>. How are we going to connect with our prospects and our residents on MySpace? And you know, I listened, I took it all in, and I definitely saw where things were gonna go.

Mike Whaling:

And I think that that's something that, that I've just always had a knack for, is kind of being able to envision where everything is gonna go down the road. And so I started writing about it — blogging — and that led me to my first client. So 30 Lines really started as a moonlighting of just writing about what I was seeing, where I thought that SEO and social media was going. You know, it's, it's really turned into just kind of how we "internet" today. It's like, we don't really talk about those things. It's just like, this is what I do when I go online. I go to Google, I go to social, I, you know, that's, and then I get distracted and 20 minutes later, I forget what I was gonna do. Right? We saw where that was going early on, and that led to, you know, my first paying client, which is actually that one that you mentioned. I had a guy come to me from Detroit, he was managing a small portfolio of properties, and he said, "Hey, I like what you're writing about. Come do it for me."

New Speaker:

And, you know, we started doing MySpace. We started managing his website. Started doing things like custom HTML templates on Craigslist, if you remember that.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. Wow, that's cool.

New Speaker:

When that was, when that was still allowed. And we were just, just figuring it out, like, you know, whatever's going to bring in some, some money and give us the opportunity to play. But what was great is that that client gave us the opportunity. Like he never said no. Any crazy idea was the best idea, and we would do it. And that's really what took us down that path of getting him recognized next to Ford. You know, he truly was an innovator and, you know, I had the opportunity to help him out. A big milestone for us was we were sharing some of the successes and Steve Lefkovits from AIM, you know, asked him to present his case study of how did you guys do this?

New Speaker:

And unfortunately he, you know, kind of at the last minute, he wasn't able to make it to the conference. So he calls me up and he goes, "Hey, normally I don't let vendors do this, but can you come give this case study of, of what your client did?" And I, you know, I was like, yeah, absolutely. So we'll come do it."

Katie Degutis:

"Twist my arm."

New Speaker:

And you know, I will never forget, like, we showed off what we did with social. We had a resident photo contest that we did on Flicker at the time, and all of those photos got reincorporated into the property websites. And, you know, there's some really cool stuff. And really what it led to was some numbers that blew people away in terms of total marketing cost per door and total marketing efficiency.

Mike Whaling:

We were just crushing it compared to what other people were paying to, to fill their, their beds at the time, to the point that people didn't believe it. But that was really a big jumping-off point for 30 Lines, was being able to, to have some clients early on that really believed in what we were doing, what we were, how we were trying to shake things up, and then being able to, to share those results with the industry really early on. After that, since then, we've really kind of gone, you know, I call us more of a "marketing technology studio" today. So we've got the agency side of the business, and that's delivering you know, a lot of the same services that, that your team does: email, and SEO, and PPC, and we'll build websites and those kinds of things.

Mike Whaling:

But we really found a lot of opportunities to fill some gaps, you know? We know that property management software does a lot of things, but it's not the greatest marketing tool out there. And so we really wanted to fill some of those gaps. And that's where, you know, kind of our next milestone was — jumping off and creating our Rentpress platform, which we're just over five years in now in terms of what that looks like. And, you know, we'll hit 2,000 properties on the platform this year. But it's really been our opportunity to kinda say, hey, property management software does a lot, but you also need this property marketing / customer marketing platform that compliments it and gives you the tools that you want, and that you wanna be able to have access to in a 2022-2023 world.

Christy McFerren:

Very cool. We have to ask you, I know that you've probably shared with us before, but for our listeners, where did the name 30 Lines come from?

Mike Whaling:

<Laugh> So, back in 2008 when I was starting the business, I came across some research that said that you and I and everybody else at the time were super impatient, and we wouldn't go past the third page of results on Google. So at that point, Google still had individual pages of results, and all the pages had 10 listings, so 10 blue links. So if you weren't in those first 30 blue links on Google, the customer was never gonna find you. And you know, I joke a lot that if I was naming the company today, it'd be more like five lines or six lines max, because we're even less patient than we were back then.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

Katie Degutis:

I was gonna say, our attention span has shrunk even more <laugh>.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. We expect the immediate answer.

Katie Degutis:

Mm-Hmm.

Mike Whaling:

I will, I will actually argue that, and we can, you know, if we wanted to get into this at some point later in the conversation, I don't think attention spans have gotten shorter. I think stories have gotten less interesting. But if binge anything on Netflix or HBO, that is proof that your attention span is longer than you think.

Katie Degutis:

Yeah, true.

Christy McFerren:

That's a great point. Definitely interesting. Well, that's kind of where we're headed with the conversation, so thank you for sharing about your past. Looking forward, we're all gonna be joining each other at AIM here soon. You mentioned Steve. So definitely I noticed your headline, "I Dream of Robots" talk, so I guess that's probably somewhat like "I Dream of Genie." <Laugh>.

Mike Whaling:

I hope I don't have to wear the Genie outfit.

Christy McFerren:

<Laugh>. Yeah. Well, I mean, come on. What more stage presence could you ask for? But, if you can give us a little bit of headlines from that without letting the genie out of the bottle too much, we'd definitely love to hear kind of where your take is on ChatGPT and where things are going in that space.

Mike Whaling:

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, Steve has always been a forward thinker. And what I love about Steve and his team is that he's not afraid to go outside the industry and pull in experts from around the world to give us a sense of, you know, what our customers see and what the, what the rest of the world of marketing looks like. Right? And, you know, you've been there, you've seen it. So this year he has an author coming over from the UK who, you know, within a couple of weeks of ChatGPT launching publicly, this guy wrote a book using the tool, talking about how to use generative AI and all the different things you can do with it. So we're in for a really fascinating keynote from David. And then, we get the, actually my wife and I, Holly, we get the job — cause she's in the industry too. It's not like I'm just bringing the family along. She's, she's better at this stuff than I am.

New Speaker:

But we get the job of taking everything that David's done and translating it specifically for multifamily. And I'm really, really excited about it. Just because I've had the chance to, to really dig into ChatGPT, and, you know, we've been working with generative AI services for a few years now, and it's, it's transformed our business just in terms of the level of output and what, you know, what we have the capabilities to do, and that they just keep getting better and better. So, you know, for ChatGPT, you know, let me take a step back. I think we're gonna hear a lot about ai, but AI is like, I kind of relate it to a spice rack.

Mike Whaling:

Like, it's a bunch of different spices. AI is a bunch of different things that are all, you know, jumbled into this one category. And you have to know which spice to take off the rack to add to the recipe that you're trying to, where you're trying to add extra flavor. And generative AI is probably the one — it's, I mean, certainly the one that's biggest right now because it's so accessible to so many people. You know, I think we all suffer from, there are two big things that I think ChatGPT does really well or answers really well. One is, what do I say? I think we all sometimes get stuck with the blank sheet of paper and the writer's block and what do I say? Or what's the right way to frame it? And this really helps at least get something on paper so that we're not starting on a blank page.

Mike Whaling:

We can just, you know, kind of start from a proofreading and go, yeah, that, that works, or no, that's not at all what I wanted. Let's try it a different way. And then the other piece of it, which is, we know as content marketers that we don't have the bandwidth to produce all of the content that we wish we could create to answer all of those questions. You know, if you're looking at, here's the SEO, and here are the things that I wanna be able to create, and here's the social media content that I wanna be able to create for my clients to make sure that, that they show up and that they're the best answer for what their customers are searching for them. We just don't, we just don't have the bandwidth. And, you know, we'll talk about this a little bit, it's if we are asking, if we as an industry are asking our on-site folks to be the ones responsible for posting social media, there's no way that they can do that and give it the attention it deserves with everything else that they have on their plates.

Mike Whaling:

And what we love about generative AI is, it makes that job a lot easier — both for marketers and for you know, folks on the operations side of this business. So we're really excited to dig into what this thing, it can do, you know, how can it help with responding to reviews? How can it help with marketing plans? How can it help with drafting an email to the boss or from the boss? How can it help with understanding the customer viewpoint and then being able to write specific responses that speak to those viewpoints. There's, there's some amazing opportunities, some things that we already have out in the wild. And I'm really excited to, to talk about the industry and, you know, talk with the folks at AIM about how it can, how they can use it to, to move faster and produce better results.

Christy McFerren:

That's very exciting. What would you say is your favorite thing that you've been able to leverage it for right now?

Mike Whaling:

Favorite thing? I mean, it's, it's really funny in how it, like, it can, it can tell stories. I think the favorite thing that I'm using it for though is what I just talked about with like, you can have a conversation with it. So you can prime it with some information. You can say, all right, here's something you need to know about this market that we're going into, and here's this new development that, that we are creating. Tell me a little bit about who you think our target audience should be in this, in this market in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And it'll spit it back. And then you go, all right, cool. Give me three different marketing angles for each one of those, those psychographic categories that you just identified. And then you, you go a little bit deeper and you go, okay, now that we have the marketing hook, now write website headlines and ad headlines and give me 10 social media posts for each one of those psychographic buckets that we've identified. And so you just, you literally just have this conversation, and you go deeper and deeper and deeper, and within 20, 30 minutes you've got a marketing plan done for a year.

Christy McFerren:

Wow. And so do you feel like, do you have somebody vet it? Is it accurate? Like, do you polish it?

Mike Whaling:

Always.

Christy McFerren:

Okay, yeah.

New Speaker:

Always. But it's, but it's just, it's like, you know, my wife says it's like having a junior copywriter that never turns off. Right? So like, you can give it what you want, but you have to read it and you have to go, 80% of this is great, 20% of this is garbage, rewrite this part, give me this part in a different tone. But it's just like having a junior employee. You kind of, you have to give them the guardrails and you have to coach them to get what you want.

Christy McFerren:

At least they're always at work, <laugh>. So that was kind of my next, my next question too was like, what, what percentage of change would you say you make to something like that? Is it, is it consistently around 20% change or...?

Mike Whaling:

So one thing that I learned really early on, and I've talked with Mike Brewer and some other folks about this, is you, it's, it's still a computer, it's still a robot. It's only gonna be as good as the result, the results are only gonna be as good as what you give it, right? So, if you give it a very generic prompt, you're gonna get generic results. Garbage in, garbage out.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

New Speaker:

If you can really understand how to give it a good prompt, you know, I've heard it called "prompt engineering", if you can give it the right prompts, you will get far better results. So I've gotten better at knowing what to ask for, and because of that, I've gotten better results.

Christy McFerren:

Well, and I would have to think that a lot of your expertise, like where the subject matter expert comes, is like, through your use and your experience, like anything else in life, you are probably more of an executive level user of AI than somebody who's just getting into it and doesn't exactly know its parameters or how it behaves exactly. So kind of gain your insight there.

Mike Whaling:

It's been, I think that that's been something that's helped me out a lot throughout my entire career is like, it's just helpful to know how did, whoever built this thing, how were they thinking about and how they build it and like, what, what were they thinking when they built it? Or like, how did they want it to work?

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

New Speaker:

It's, you know, one of the first things that I do for every tool that I ever sign up for is like, I go to the settings and I just go through all the different settings. I'm like, oh, I didn't know you could do that, like, here's, here's this whole section of, you know, I can give it this information and now I have more capabilities. And I think that, like, I think that that's been useful advice and, you know, it's something to, for everybody to take away is like, whether it's your property management software, or an AI like an email assistant, or whatever it is, like dig into the settings a little bit. Like get familiar with what's possible and what you can do with it. And I think it'll be it's, it's very eye-opening to see like, oh, I was only using, you know, a small fraction of the capabilities, now I have a better understanding of everything I can do.

Christy McFerren:

Smart. It's your first word on your t-shirt. Curiosity. <Laugh> Well I have one last question and then I'll turn it over to somebody else for a minute. <Laugh> I'm hogging the mic. But, so you always do a great job of highlighting trends like you were talking about, about what's coming. So what do you see coming — AI or not, client side or agency side — that we need to see coming down the road and work together on with our operator partners in the industry?

Mike Whaling:

I mean, so I see this both from like a macro perspective within the industry, and then kind of, how does that come down to marketers? And from a macro perspective, you know, you just look at what are the executives talking about? What are they focused on? And this year, I think an uncertain economy is certainly looming on everybody's mind, and people aren't really sure if they need to, how much they need to plan for that, right? <Laugh> But people are looking for ways to control expenses and, and control costs. So I think as a marketer, we have to be able to show the value of what we do, right? Like, it's not just, you know, plug in last year's budget and add 5% and set it and forget it. It's what are the ways, how are we showing value for the company and where can we drive revenue?

Mike Whaling:

Because I think there's a big opportunity for that. I think our executive teams are finally starting to realize how overwhelmed the ops teams are. Regional folks and the onsite folks. Like, what are the things that we can take off their plate so that they can focus on service? Because, you know, the other thing that they're really thinking about is what does the resident experience look like and how does, what do we want our resident experience to look like, which is a huge opportunity for marketing. And then, you know, the word of the year is "centralization" in the industry. And, and that doesn't apply just to marketing, but I think that there are some things that are some areas that are unique to marketing where...take it back up to the top. It's like, we can add real value by centralizing some of the things within marketing and providing a better experience based on how we know customers shop for apartments today.

Mike Whaling:

It's, and for years and years and years, the ILSs have had this huge, huge headstart and that they get to those customers first because they're more aligned with how customers have traditionally shopped for an apartment. Well, now with centralization, we have the opportunity to shift that a little bit and, and take back some of that power from the ILSs, which is awesome. And it's amazing to see that work. For marketers, I think, like one thing that I'm really big on right now is "try it on" marketing. Like, I think we have to be able to answer the question, and this, your crew is all about this. We have to be able to answer the question, what is it like to live here?

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

New Speaker:

And people need to be able to see that from the website. They need to be able to see it from the emails you send. They, they need to be able to see it from the reviews. They need to be able to see it from the wayfinding when they get to the property. Like all of that stuff like, we have to be able to answer. And that's where you're gonna see this trend of like unit level marketing, right? Unit level content. Because I wanna be able to see the exact department 413. I wanna see the view out the window. I wanna see, you know, what are the amenities that I get in this specific unit and the upgrades that have been been in there. And you know, and then I'm gonna walk to the property and I'm gonna see what's across the street and what does that look like, and what does it smell like, and do I like how it feels when I walk in? Is there enough natural light? Like, those are the things that we need to be able to communicate at a unit level. And that, that totally changes the game in terms of the amount of content we need to create as marketers and, you know, as agency partners, to support being able to answer that question.

Katie Degutis:

Absolutely. I love that.

New Speaker:

I've got a bunch of other ones, but I wanna give you one that I'm really, really excited about. I think we are going to see a explosion in ancillary income, in ancillary revenue opportunities for this industry. We're starting to see it with some third party vendors and like, digital amenity providers and those kinds of things. I don't think that our clients, I don't think that operators fully appreciate how much leverage they have with the captive audience that, that they cater to on a daily basis. Every brand, every brand in the country wants to figure out how to get in the living room of the, of their customer. Our clients literally own the living room of the customer. And, and that is massive, massive leverage that is just waiting to be unlocked. And I think that, you know, we're starting to see the, the green sprouts of this with some of our clients, and it's super exciting to see what this looks like and where it takes the industry from here.

Christy McFerren:

That's really cool.

Katie Degutis:

Yeah, that definitely gives a lot to think on too, of, of what could be coming. I have a question that's kind of a little bit of a shift over to the culture side of things. So one of the main focuses we have within the Catalyst culture is how we interface with those that we serve. And I noticed on your LinkedIn, you have a line that says that you're an "advocate for housing that elevates lives." I think that pairs really well with Catalyst's own mission of "creating and promoting brands that foster community and add value to people's lives." So I wanted to kind of get your take and your approach on how you do that in your day-to-day and kind of what you do to elevate lives, as you put it.

Mike Whaling:

Yeah. I, locally, I serve on the board of the, the YMCA here and the YMCA in central Ohio is one of the largest providers of affordable housing in the area. And it's been really exciting to see how not only what they've done, but how they do it, because they understand one, you know, every opportunity starts with a roof over your head. And we have to figure out a way to deliver that. But not only that, it's also the services that need to be delivered to help those people get from off the streets or out of a shelter, to being able to support themselves. Because not everybody can do that just by giving them the keys to an apartment, right? Like, you have to figure out, you know, how are they gonna get to work, how are they gonna get to their appointments?

Mike Whaling:

How are they gonna see their social worker? What are all of the things that they, that they need? How, you know, how are we gonna make sure that they have, have furniture and, and that the food bank can take care of that? Like all of those different social services have to be in place to support that basic need of housing. So it's been really, really cool to be a part of that organization. And, you know, I'm actually taking a tour this week of a new apartment community that we opened up that was, you know, it's, it's not even workforce housing. It's, you know, guys that were coming out of a shelter and this is their first apartment and they're paying the rent and we're, we're helping them with all those other services to make sure that they are supported.

Mike Whaling:

What that looks like for me day to day, really trying to understand what that looks like. Like not only, you know, I think that you're probably in the same boat that most of our clients are building, you know, Class A properties. It's the, you know, the top of the top in every city that we're in. And even, you know, the Class B properties that we're working with are institutionally supported. And you know, I'll get to that part in a minute, but like, there's this whole other section of, of our economy that just needs more support of, you know, if I can't qualify for the government programs, but I can't afford the Class A, Class B apartment, what are the things that we can do? And how can we create opportunities for those places to have, for those folks to have a safe, clean place to live. It's, I think it's, you know, it's something that this industry is going to be a big part of how we figure that out. We can't do it on our own, but it's, it's definitely something that I, I really try and do as much as I can to understand that need.

Katie Degutis:

I love that. I think that that's something that our entire team is very passionate about as well, and, and definitely can see that you are too.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. That's a good place to just kind of insert, I don't know, Mike, if you've connected much with this group, but there's a group called Shelters to Shutters that I'm on the board, their board as well, and really is working hard within our industry to help solve some of that. So it's definitely — more players are needed at that table whether it's working in partnership with them or creating similar opportunities, but it's certainly an industry that is well positioned more than most, or maybe more than any to do good on that side of things.

Mike Whaling:

Yeah, I a hundred percent believe that.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

Katie Degutis:

Cool. Well, kind of shifting gears again I think that this'll probably go back a little to what we were saying at the beginning about attention span and kind of where people get their stories. But at GlobeSt.'s Multifamily Conference last fall, you talked about storytelling as part of getting quality tenants, and you recommended a marketing strategy of: Want quality residents? Sell them a story where they're the hero. A few years back, the entire Catalyst team went through Don Miller's StoryBrand workshop, which has a very, very similar mindset. We find it to be extremely effective and love to hear some of the practical outflow of telling residents how they're the hero in their apartment communities. How have you seen that play out in practical ways with your clients? And what kind of examples are you seeing and how are they working?

Mike Whaling:

I think, I think the best thing that apartment marketing can do is show somebody, show the prospect a better version of themselves because they made the choice to live with you. And, and that looks different for, for every brand, right? Just, just like in every other industry. It looks different for every brand. But if you can find what is it that that person's looking for and, and where do they want to go? You know, I, I kind of joke like, it's, it's the young professional who, maybe he is driving the Honda Civic today, but he's gonna, he's gonna upgrade to that Audi or that M5 or something like that. Like, he can see himself in that car. You, you wanna be providing that aspirational message of here's how your life is gonna be better because you made that choice to live with us.

Mike Whaling:

Whether that's because of convenience or amenities or location and, you know, shorter commute, or we have everything that you need for work from home, or we have all of this stuff for, you know, we have lots of outdoor space for your kids. Whatever those things, you know, we're in the right school district. It's all about positioning that as helping them see themselves there. And what we see is, you know, go back to people typically, because brand has not really stood out in this industry. The way that people search is not by brand. It's not "Starbucks near me." They search by, "I need a two bedroom apartment in this neighborhood." And so the marketplaces, like ILSs and Google Maps are typically the places that people go to first. So what we have to do is we have to figure out ways to stand out in that marketplace once we get them to their website. Once, once somebody fills out a guest card on Apartments.com or Zillow, what's the story that we're gonna tell that makes us stand out from every other listing in the marketplace? Right? And what we've seen is, when we can effectively tell that story, it makes the leasing team's job easier.

Thomas Demiranda:

Yeah.

Mike Whaling:

When we do nurturing and we do storytelling right, typically we see a 25 to 40% bump in the leasing team's closing rate.

Christy McFerren:

Wow. Who's, so, who's doing it right? Like, who do you see doing that? Like, can you give an example?

Mike Whaling:

There are a lot of companies that are doing it, right.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

Mike Whaling:

So, you know, I, one of the new players to the industry that I think people should have an eye on is Central. I really like what Central's doing and some of the things that they're doing with the, from a parent brand, and then how that trickles down to the individual properties. I think that there's a lot of inspiration out there for what that looks like. I could give you a bunch of names, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna save it. You know, what we've, what we've seen is, there really is this opportunity to get in front of people earlier on in the process and then nurture them through a story. And, and you do it right, by the time somebody walks in the door, they're, they're pre-sold, they're excited, they're ready to go.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. So I guess the really, in your mind, the goal is to convert them from that functional search to a branded search by telling stories that they recall and remember and stick out? Or...

Mike Whaling:

I think we have a lot of room. I think we have a lot of, we have a ways to go before we really, we really get to branded searches. We're not there yet. You know, I don't have the reason for most people, unless they've already experienced a brand, they don't know, hey, this is why I should go live with, with this community. Unless they've heard it from a friend, friend or experienced it themselves. You know, like I said, we're not, we're not at a point yet where people have a brand in mind and they get the job, I have to move from Denver, Chicago, I know this is the brand I'm looking for. That's a really small percentage of shoppers out there today. I think it's gonna happen eventually.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah.

Mike Whaling:

But there's, there are plenty of ways to stand out.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. I think as marketers, if, if we set that as our goal, then we set ourselves down a path like you're talking about, if that's at least in the back of our mind as part of the formula.

Mike Whaling:

We need a lot of, oh, man, if you really want to go down this rabbit hole, yes. <Laugh> I mean, listen, brand is expectation, right? Brand is a promise that is delivered on because of operational consistency.

Christy McFerren:

Right?

Mike Whaling:

And typically in this industry, we've built the brand at the property level, so there's no consistency between assets and there's no expectation of connection between one property, you know, multiple properties across town. So what we have to be thinking about is, how do you build that parent brand? The example that I use all the time is like Kimpton Hotels. Kimpton Hotels is, has done a really nice job of every single property is uniquely branded, and every single property in their portfolio is uniquely designed for the neighborhood that it's in. But you always know when it's a Kimpton, because you walk in and it has a more modern, you know, they're very design forward, they're very pet friendly, they're always gonna have the manager's happy hour in the lobby where every, you know, every weekday you can come down and get a drink.

Mike Whaling:

They have a, they have their brand pillars that they stand on, and they've been, they've built their whole brand around that. And everything that they do, all of their marketing, all of their imagery is, you're not walking into a hotel, you're walking into our living room. We wanna welcome you in as a, as that level of guest. And because of that, they've now built a loyal following and people are looking for, you know, what's the Kimpton? I have to travel to DC. Where's the Kimpton? Can I stay there? And there are plenty of other brands like that, right? That's what we need to be thinking about as with our industry is, what are the things that we can offer and have that level of operational consistency of every time somebody walks into the property, they're always gonna see this. They're always gonna get greeted like this, you know, I'm always gonna get the "my pleasure" from Chick-fil-A, doesn't matter which one I, I walk away from. I'm always gonna get that level of service.

Christy McFerren:

Well, and I think too, there's room in the, the B and C asset class to do that by experience and community that forms because you can't always have the amenities that are standard or the design-forward thinking or the super innovative spaces, or you would also be pricing everyone out of the market that's not, you know, young, wealthy people. And so I think, you know, having that mindset in the way you deliver is super important as well.

Mike Whaling:

Did you see the J Turner ORA Awards?

Christy McFerren:

Not yet. Not this year.

Mike Whaling:

The number one service property for, for service delivery in the country is a hundred-unit property that is 30 years old in a suburb of Philadelphia and has no amenities.

Christy McFerren:

Yeah. But they are crushing it on service, and they're, to the point that their, their residents recognize it and reward them for it. And they're the number, they're the number one property in the country for reputation.

Christy McFerren:

Well, and that just goes to the power of community. Like, people want to be connected to each other and having a good experience in that space. So kudos to them.

Thomas Demiranda:

Yeah. We could do everything right online and from a brand promise standpoint, right? And once they go to the property, take that tour, encounter the on-site folks, if that online experience doesn't match the on-site experience, then basically all is lost. So definitely want to check out that, that you know, J Turner, the publication they put out and see how that goes. Well, before we let you go, Mike, we cannot go without asking this question. I, you know, I see you on LinkedIn and online a lot, and I see that you're always so generous to highlight friends, even people that are basically partners or do the same type of work that you do in your network. And I think when you usually talk, at least from what I see on LinkedIn, people are usually listening and there's always a lot of comments back and forth. And it, I feel like always learned something on one of those threads. And so really the question is, when did that desire to kind of be more vocal on LinkedIn start?

Mike Whaling:

My mom and dad are both educators. I don't come from a business house or a business background. So I think I've always, I think some of it's genetic, like it's in my blood to like help. If I see an opportunity to educate, I, I want to be able to share that. I also think that you can give away all the answers and it's still on the person on the other side to, to execute and do it. You know, like, ideas are cheap, right? So I just want to share what I'm seeing, share where I, where I see things going. As much as I share online, which honestly I don't think is a lot compared to some people I do, I do three times as much listening and learning and reading other people's stuff. I'm just trying to understand perspectives.

Mike Whaling:

You know, took me a long time to learn this industry and learn how cap rates work, and learn to be able to speak the, the language of the owner. And once I did, it changed my ability to have the conversation with, you know, a different level of person. And, you know, who doesn't necessarily think about marketing that way? You know, they hear, oh, I need to be doing social media more. And I'm able to talk to them and say, hey, if we make this investment, if we spend this money now, here's the value that we're gonna create based on, based on NOI, and based on your property valuation in six months. And I've just been able to like, just listen and learn and take in those viewpoints and then figure out, you know, one of our company values is "Connect the Dots." I spend a lot of time trying to figure out like, what is this thing from hospitality or from restaurants or from some other industry? And then what does that look like, what could that look like for multifamily? And there's some pretty cool stuff that can come from that.

Thomas Demiranda:

Awesome.

Christy McFerren:

I love that value.

Thomas Demiranda:

Awesome.

Christy McFerren:

We might have to adopt it. <Laugh>

Thomas Demiranda:

Yeah. <laugh> Well, we really appreciate your time and perspective and everything you've shared today. And one of the things that is kind of a, a tradition here is we ask our guests, what has you in a good mood today? And so we'll let you go first. What has you in a good mood today?

Mike Whaling:

It is, what is it, the first week of March that we're recording this? It is beautiful outside. It's like almost 70 degrees. The sun is shining, and after spending an hour with you folks talking shop, I get to go get outside with my family. So that has me in a, in a great mood.

Thomas Demiranda:

Well, that's incredible. And for me I actually, speaking of family, I'm gonna go to the Northeast for couple weeks — Cape Cod — to spend some time with my folks and take my two girls and my wife there. So, very excited about a early, not too early of a flight, but tomorrow we gotta go <laugh>. And so right after this, I'll, I'll be getting ready to get outta here and, and go get prepared for that.

Christy McFerren:

Awesome. I'm excited because it's International Women's Day on Wednesday, and I just got to take our ladies to lunch and just, we had a little figurine of the Fearless Girl statue, and passed her around and shared, the only restriction was it can't be about Catalyst or work, so we just kind of shared things that were on our heart and happening in our lives and connected a little bit. So that was fun.

Katie Degutis:

Yeah, that was definitely fun. I'm still on a post vacation high. I just got back from Hawaii, so I'm in that happiness halo still <laugh> and mentally still there looking at a beach, but nice to be back in Austin too.

Thomas Demiranda:

Awesome. Well thanks. Thank you Mike again. Thank you everybody. And we hope to catch you next time. Cheers everyone.

Christy McFerren:

Cheers everybody.

Thomas Demiranda:

Hey, this is Thomas from Good Mood Marketing Podcast. If you like what you're listening to, please rate or review us on whichever streaming platform you're listening to. Thanks!